Fatal Mistakes

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Fatal Mistakes Page 19

by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma


  ‘Ignored,’ he replied and she laughed. ‘Nice story in today’s paper, by the way.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’ She caught her fingers twirling her hair and immediately brought them down, horrified. ‘How’s the hand?’

  ‘Oh, terrible,’ he said with mock sadness in his voice. ‘It’s the worst. I’m going to need someone to come over and shower me with a lot of care and attention.’

  She grinned despite herself.

  ‘Well, good luck finding someone,’ she said.

  ‘I thought I already had,’ he said and she almost felt giddy.

  Stop it, she told herself. Behave yourself. This is not an audition for a Disney movie. Then, to her horror, she saw Binoy approaching her. Their deal! Oh God. Please let him have forgotten all about it! But who was she kidding? He wouldn’t forget something like that. A deal was a deal. Ugh.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, making a face.

  She told him about how Binoy had agreed to give her information on Menaka in exchange for the identity of Dhruv’s mystery date. To her surprise, he didn’t mind her telling Binoy about them.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘It’ll be a circus once the gossip rags know …’

  ‘I don’t care who knows, as long as I get to see you again,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s what got you beaten up, remember?’ she said, trying hard not to focus on how his words made her stomach feel funny. ‘I don’t want something to … I mean, what if …?’

  ‘What if you came over tonight? You can tell me all your very commendable fears and I can sit still and look at you the whole time.’

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed and agreed to meet him.

  Yep, things were going to be OK, she thought as she hung up. For Dhruv. For Uday. For her career. Not so much for the honourable state minister for Women and Child Welfare, but she could live with that.

  ‘Yo, Devdas!’ she called out to Uday, who frowned. She disconnected the pen drive Nalini had sent her and waved it at him. ‘You want in on this or what?’

  Notes

  1. Small by Delhi standards, obviously.

  2. On 26 July 2005, Mumbai faced a twenty-four-hour deluge of rainfall that expanded the citizens’ vocabulary to include words like ‘cloudburst’, ‘torrential rain’ and ‘your car insurance doesn’t cover this, sir’.

  3. The Bombay Municipal Corporation is India’s richest municipal corporation with an annual budget that’s more than that of some states—entire states. And it spends those funds efficiently and wisely, by repeatedly giving it to contractors who build city roads that defy belief. Germany has autobahns that allow you to drive without speed limits. Britain has motorways spread across six different levels. And Mumbai has roads … that dissolve at the first signs of rain.

  4. The Secondary School Certificate is awarded to students in Maharashtra when they can successfully perform the death-defying feat of reproducing, verbatim, the contents of a dozen textbooks. Death-defying, because the number of SSC students considering stress-related suicide around exam time is directly proportional to the number of SSC students in general. This is mostly because your percentage in the SSC exams is said to determine your entire future—as if there isn’t a whole gamut of career options for people who flunk. Cough *Bollywood* cough.

  5. 750 ml of alcohol, usually local. Not to be confused with optimistically named domestic liquor aimed at people who drink because they think whiskey can fill an imperial, royal or officer-shaped void in their lives. People who drink by the khamba have no time for such tomfoolery. They drink to fill the whiskey-shaped void in their liver.

  6. Mumbai housemaids are like miffed spouses. They’ll answer their phones only if they feel like it. Leave you in a double-blue-tick hell for hours before responding to a WhatsApp text. And every second phone conversation with them opens with you saying, ‘Hello? Listen … when are you coming home?’

  7. The high-protein, low-carb brainchild of Dr Jagannath Dixit, the Dixit diet pushes Atkins off the swing, bitch-slaps Paleo and calls it a wuss, and sends Keto crying home to its mommy. And it takes one look at intermittent fasting and tells it to grow the fuck up.

  8. In 1997, the Bollywood film Dil To Pagal Hai introduced viewers to Rahul, a man completely besotted with a figment of his own imagination called Maya. Maya wore diaphanous garments and danced to his tunes, in his dreams. Because, you know, that’s what women do. The movie was successfully marketed as a romance, as opposed to say, psychological horror, which is what any normal woman being compared to a man-child’s dom-porno fantasy would feel.

  9. Novenas are like a hardcore Make-A-Wish Foundation for Roman Catholics. Traditionally a novena is supposed to be recited for nine successive days or nine successive hours, with a specific wish in mind. Now, mortal fathers at the end of such single-minded wheedling eventually crumble with a gruff, ‘Fine, fine, do what you want, just don’t bug me.’ So if the Almighty Father is even a little bit like regular ones, you have to allow for the possibility that novenas actually work.

  10. Whether they accept it or not, Indian drivers are some of the most brazenly confident in the world. They travel helmetless and seatbelt-less, through the wild wastelands of traffic, fervently believing that arré, nothing, nothing can happen to them. Which, given the road accident statistics in the country, is the equivalent of looking Fate in the eye and saying, ‘Yo mama so fat, when she rides a bike, she gets pulled over for driving triple-seat.’

  11. Which is, incidentally, the BMC’s unofficial motto towards the city’s problems.

  12. You know those dreams you get at three in the morning in which nothing makes sense? You’re going to office with an umbrella, then suddenly it rains but your umbrella is missing? Then you’re at your desk and it’s Diwali and it’s sunny outside and you light a sparkler but then it rains and you’re drenched? Yeah. You know how they call Mumbai the city of dreams?

  13. Which isn’t to say there are any un-posh parts of Bandra, a suburb where your monthly rent is roughly the same amount the rest of the country pays annually to put a child through school. But in exchange, you do get a flat the size of a Delhi garage and the privilege of saying, ‘Oh, me? I live in Bandruh.’ See, it all evens out.

  14. The latest in 2006, where over 200 people were killed and over 700 injured. People still showed up for work the next day. Not because of some vague ‘spirit’ of ‘life goes on’. It doesn’t. It didn’t for those 200 people, for example. No, people show up to work because terror and all is okay, but if you get an absent mark, the bastards in accounts will cut your salary and then how will you make rent? Especially in Bandruh?

  15. Most local train seats are long enough for three people to sit side by side comfortably. But in Mumbai, personal space is just a collection of nonsense syllables. So, you are expected to scoot over and create a ‘fourth seat’ for a fourth passenger to rest approximately half a buttock in that space for the duration of their journey. Either that or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous aggression for the duration of yours.

  16. Single-use plastic bags and bottles have been banned in Mumbai since June 2019. If caught with a plastic bag, you can be fined anywhere between five thousand and twenty-five thousand rupees. This measure has overnight turned Mumbai city into a plastic-less paradise. Also, all corruption has ended, casteism has been solved and world peace will be established by tomorrow evening at the latest.

  17. Humanity has been underestimating the danger of pricks since forever. Sleeping Beauty found that out the hard way. But she was just sixteen. Judges trying rape cases today don’t have that excuse. All they need to do before pardoning rapists, is think of Hitler: a man who conclusively proved that one small prick can eventually end up becoming a giant pain in the ass.

  18. The Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Bill was passed in 2011. Eleven years into the twenty-first century and over sixty years after the Constitution of India was written. Till then children in India simply weren’t sexually assaulted. I
t’s just a total coincidence that so many millennials in the country are now turning to therapy for unresolved childhood trauma.

  19. Nicknames for Marathi girls are typically derived from cute childish words for small defenseless animals: ‘chiu’ aka sparrow, ‘mau’ aka cat, ‘chiku’ aka sapota (fine, there are exceptions). But nicknames for Marathi boys, on the other hand, are just things kids can properly pour their bloodlust into, as they screech at hapless fielders on the cricket ground, such as ‘Pakya, saalya, stop that ball!’

  Acknowledgements

  Too many cooks might spoil the broth, but one solitary writer definitely needs help.

  In the form of sane voices to talk you off the cliff of self-doubt.

  Or just to slap your wrist while you commit crime in print.

  This is for those voices.

  Vahishta Mistry, at some point you will tire of being positive and constructive and timely with your feedback and friend, I live in terror of that day.

  Pavitra Jayaraman, you have taken so many questions from me about so many different things, you should know that kind of behaviour only encourages me to keep calling.

  Ahana Chaudhuri and Ishita Desai, you are the beta readers authors dream of. So if I turn to you with every successive book, it really is entirely your fault.

  Mr Sachin Jadhavar, thank you sir, for answering all my layman questions regarding police and judiciary procedure and having the grace to not look too horrified at the way my mind works.

  Thanks also to my wonderful editor, Swati Daftuar and the team at HarperCollins India for giving Avantika another shot at adventure. She and I are eternally grateful.

  Irawati, dear, I know you want your Mama to write a children’s book and I really hope one day I can. But till then, know that I’m eternally thankful you are mine.

  And Arjun, as my husband, you continue to tolerate my ridiculous writerly whims and stubborn demands for feedback. But hey man, you voluntarily signed up for this ten years ago so don’t expect any sympathy from me now. Love, yes. Sympathy, nope.

  AN APPEAL

  250–300 acid attack incidents are reported in India every year while the actual number could exceed 1,000, according to Acid Survivors Trust International. Enough has been written about the reasons why these attacks occur. Not nearly enough has been done about making them stop. But this isn’t a rant about apathy. This is simply an appeal: do consider supporting any of the following organisations:

  Milaap.org raises funds for surgeries that acid-attack survivors need.

  Chhanv Foundation offers medical care, counselling, arranges employment opportunities and also helps raise funds for acid-attack survivors who want to pursue further studies.

  Make Love Not Scars is a non-profit organization that helps acid-attack victims with legal, medical, educational, vocational and psychological help.

  Atijeevan Foundation also works towards making life easier for survivors of acid attacks by providing financial, mental and psychological help.

  Acid Survivors and Women Welfare Foundation offers survivors a Trauma Informed Care Kit (TICK) that outlines the best methods, tools, resources, and how to make the best use of these resources. It also extends legal support, medical help, and rehabilitation facilities.

  About the Book

  This is what Mumbai Daily reporter Avantika Pandit wants: To cover crime. To not be a feature writer. To never have to write another listicle in her life. Ever. This is what she actually has: One enraged editor. One garbage assignment (literally). And a bunch of mysterious texts that hint at deadly, hidden crimes, which she absolutely, positively shouldn’t be digging into.

  Oh, well.

  Can she unearth the truth, without pissing off her boss – even more? Can she brave Dhruv Juneja’s incessant flirting? Will she finally cross over to the hallowed ground of crime reporting, preferably with all her limbs intact?

  Or will she discover that all it really takes to end up begging for your life, is one fatal mistake?

  About the Author

  Vedashree Khambete-Sharma is an advertising professional who frequently runs out of space while filling her name in official forms. For the past twenty years, she has flirted with the English language through advertising, journalism and terribly amateur poetry. In the process, she has won several Indian and international awards for advertising, a silver medal for a poem called ‘Mathematics’ and absolutely no recognition for her journalism. She is quite proud of the medal though.

  She lives in Mumbai with her husband, daughter and the uneasy feeling that referring to herself in the third person is just plain creepy.

  Find her on www.vedashreeks.com

  ALSO BY VEDASHREE KHAMBETE-SHARMA

  Dead body, check. Disillusioned reporter, check. Dark and sinister secrets, check.

  When Mumbai Daily journalist Avantika Pandit is asked to interview her childhood nemesis Aisha Juneja, she knows it will be like an express bikini wax—painful, but quick. Then Laxmi, her former best friend, shows up dead. And suddenly Avantika finds herself turning into the reporter she used to be—a nosy little newshound with the self-preservation instincts of a dodo.

  Now, she has to meet old acquaintances she’d hoped never to run into again, try to unravel the puzzle of Laxmi’s death, and ask the questions nobody seems to be asking—who is the man Laxmi was in love with? Why hasn’t anybody heard of him? What does he have to do with her death?

  The answers could get her killed. But if the choice is between death and writing listicles, dying might not be that bad after all.

  Featuring schoolyard rivalries, the Backstreet Boys and a fat dollop of 90s nostalgia, Swear You Won’t Tell? is part thriller, part whodunit, all fun.

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  First published in India in 2021 by

  HarperCollins Publishers

  A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Vedashree Khambete-Sharma 2021

  P-ISBN: 978-93-5422-709-7

  Epub Edition © July 2021: 978-93-5422-626-7

  The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

  Vedashree Khambete-Sharma asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Cover design: Amit Malhotra

  Cover image: Getty Images

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  HarperCollins Publishers

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